4 comments:

As much as I like to root for the little guy, Mojang is being a bit thick here. "Scrolls" is a pretty generic trademark to be going for. I suspect if they had gone for something a bit less generic, like "Scrolls of Legends" or something, then Bethesda might not have been quite so quick on the draw.

So, unfortunately, Bethesda kinda has to go after even the slightest whiff of trademark violations. Not protecting your trademark against a high-profile challenge means that you could lose the trademark. It would have been nice if they could have worked something out before it got to court, but I have to wonder how much of the issue was Notch using the issue as free PR and to get the faithful whipped up into a frenzy.

As much as I like to root for the little guy, Mojang is being a bit thick here. "Scrolls" is a pretty generic trademark to be going for.

More generic than Apple or Windows or RAGE or Braid or Portal or LIMBO etc? And that was just a cursory look at my Steam (!!!) page. If Bethesda can do Rage in spite of Streets of Rage, Mojang can do Scrolls in spite of The Elder Scrolls.

I don't have any of the sort of hero worship typically going on towards Notch & crew; these sort of trivial lawsuits are just incredibly annoying and I am glad any time someone actually goes to court. Too often, these cases amount to outright extortion: the law is on your side, but it'd cost you $150,000 to prove it vs the $50,000 settlement.

Actually, Apple Computer got into a big scuffle with Apple Records, which was the Beatles' record lable. It was a big deal when the Beatles' music finally made it onto iTunes.

(other examples)

Sadly, "other people are being idiots" isn't a usually a good legal defense.

And, most of these examples are from huge companies. Windows was trademarked after Microsoft became a pretty big company. Mojang is still small, and using a generic trademark for a name seems like a poor strategy.

I'm not a lawyer, especially not a Swedish one, but my layman analysis is that this is unlikely to go well for Mojang given my limited knowledge.

these sort of trivial lawsuits are just incredibly annoying and I am glad any time someone actually goes to court.

It would be nice if the companies could have worked something out without going to court. But you still have to work within the law, even if it's stupid. Again, Bethesda could lose their trademark if they don't defend it. Given how important the Elder Scrolls games are to Bethesda, I'm sure they'd rather not take any risk.

Yeah, but what does your (grand)mother think? That's the real test, how the public thinks about the name. You are not the general public in this area.

This feels like patent trolling.

No, this is different. You can still keep a patent even if you know about someone violating it. If you know someone is violating your trademark and you do nothing then you could lose the trademark. Patent trolling is when someone intentionally keeps a patent obscure then sues everyone who likely independently came up with the process. Patent trolling is scummy, defending your trademark is something you just have to do as a business owner.

Why we're here.

That's a Terrible Idea is a tag-team blog about designing better games. Though we focus on MMOs, we both are avid gamers that happily reach beyond the mainstream to find the games that suit us the best. We aim to offer insight and analysis on design decisions in existing games and constructive suggestions for the future.

Though we are both amateurs in game design, we spend many hours thinking about this stuff and want to create a place to cultivate useful discussion and analysis. We encourage experts and professionals as well as fellow amateurs to critique our work. Please help us improve the quality of the material here with your insight and knowledge.

We'd like to move past punditry towards a small, close community of gamers and game designers. Above all else, we want to facilitate the design of better games.